Building upon its long-term commitment to community involvement, Starbucks Coffee Company recently awarded more than $1 million in Starbucks™ Shared Planet™ Youth Action Grants in the U.S. The company’s goal is to engage 50,000 young people to innovate and take action in their communities by 2015. CommunityGrows was selected as a grant recipient in order to advance its efforts toward environmental education and its BEETS Program (Band of Environmentally Educated and Employable Teens).
“We’re pleased to support organizations (like CommunityGrows) that are dedicated to cultivating tomorrow’s change-makers,” said Ben Packard, Starbucks vice president of Global Responsibility. “We hope our Youth Action Grants will enable a new generation of creative problem-solvers to make a meaningful impact in their communities while gaining valuable life skills.”
On May 21, 2010 Starbucks presented a check for $10,000 to CommunityGrows at John Muir School Environmental Day. Julie Hurlbert, Starbucks District Manager, and her associates Richard and Payne, joined students on the third floor of the school for activities which included recycling, re-use designing, leaf pressing, bug and insect viewing. Then we took them on a tour of the Koshland Park Community Learning Garden.
A few weeks later a great crew of Starbucks employees came out with other neighborhood volunteers, to help us on our Koshland Park and Garden Workday, June 19th. It was a beautiful and productive day. The biggest accomplishment was that we painted the garden fence and took out all the large weeds outside the garden. The park and garden were transformed! Thank you Starbucks and we look forward to our continued partnership!